Overview

The Configuration Manager provides the necessary infrastructure for a centralized
configuration of the JavaTM Desktop System. Currently, the Configuration Manager consists of
the following client- and server-side components:

Figure 1–1 Client- and server-side components

Configuration Propagation

All policies are stored in a central configuration repository, such as an LDAP
server (7). A policy is the term for a group of semantically
coherent configuration settings. A Configuration Agent (3), running on each client machine,
is responsible for retrieving the policy data from the LDAP server, and for caching
the data locally (2). The Configuration Agent periodically checks for any changes on the
LDAP server, and updates the cache accordingly. Furthermore, the Configuration Agent sends
notifications to all interested applications. Desktop applications, such as StarOffice, Mozilla, Evolution or GNOME, read the policies by means of corresponding adapters (1). These adapters
encapsulate the necessary communication with the cache and the Configuration Agent.

Configuration Management

The Configuration Manager (5) is a web-based administration tool that allows
you to view, define, and enforce configuration settings on different levels of an
organization's hierarchy, such as an organization, group or user level with a web
browser. The Configuration Manager is a part of the Java Web Console (4), which
provides the necessary infrastructure for all of Sun's administration tools, such
as a common web-based graphical user interface (GUI) and single sign-on authentication.
The Configuration Manager uses templates (6) to view, define,
and enforce configuration settings in the configuration repository and to render the
GUI for displaying these configuration settings.